After knocking in 14 of 28 3-pointers in a demolition of Northern Illinois Saturday, Western Michigan University's men's basketball team buried 4 of 6 triples to start Tuesday.

How come no one had thought of this before? Why would anyone shoot from inside 20 feet, 9 inches?

Because 4-for-6 can become 6-for-22, and an early four-point lead can become a heck of a missed opportunity and a 50-44 road loss to a mediocre, if scrappy, foe.

WMU (6-11 overall, 3-1 MAC) leaves Muncie tied with Ball State (8-8, 3-1) atop the Mid-American Conference's West Division, instead of holding a two-game lead on the entire division.

"We had some of the similar looks tonight and we didn't knock them down," said Broncos coach Hawkins, who instructed his team to begin to drive the ball when its long-distance fortunes started to change. " ... When you're not hitting from 3 and you're driving the ball and you can't get the ball to drop, (and) you're not getting to the free-throw line, that makes it difficult."

WMU's shooting woes didn't discriminate based on distance. The Broncos made just 8 of 29 shots inside the 3-point arc, making about 27 percent of their shots no matter where they came from.

Derek Drews led WMU with 17 points, but made 6 of 17 field goals, including 3 of 9 3-pointers after making 2 of 3 from deep to help the Broncos to a 12-8 early lead -- with all four of WMU's buckets coming from beyond the arc.

"Looking down at these totals, (14)-for-51, that's not acceptable," said Drews, who missed two free throws with WMU trailing 44-37 with 3:34 left and a decent look from long range with score at 45-40 with 1:17 to play. "After the great shooting night we had the other night, they were getting out (high and) playing us. They had double-teamed the post all year and they didn't double-team our post. We just didn't finish. I mean I've got to lead by example. I missed a lot of bunnies in there and I can't count on Flen (Whitfield) and LaMarcus (Lowe) to keep finishing if I'm not leading by example. We had no post play tonight."

Lowe and Whitfield struggled inside, with the Broncos' pair of freshman big men combining for one field goal (by Lowe) and six rebounds.

"If you shoot 27 percent and you can only pull down seven offensive rebounds, shooting 27 percent, it makes no sense whatsoever," Hawkins said. "It's effort. Our big guys, with their length, should chase down and get more garbage than we're getting."

Neither Lowe or Whitfield -- or anyone else, for that matter -- could find the net against Ball State's more girthy posts, and Whitfield made several costly mistakes defensively early in the second half, helping Ball State to a quick start to the final 20 minutes.

WMU led 20-14 until the final 90 seconds of the first half. The Cardinals closed with five straight points and opened the second half with two quick field goals with Whitfield losing his man on both and finding a spot on the bench shortly thereafter.

"It's something we have to get better at," Drews said. "We've come out flat at the start of every second half this year. It's lack of focus, it's lack of details and it's little things."

Though the Broncos lost the momentum they clearly controlled in the first half, they led as late as 34-32 at the midway point of the final stanza and only trailed 39-37 with less than 5 minutes to play.

Brandon Lampley's 3-pointer with 4:20 left gave Ball State the command (42-37) it would never again lose, as the Cardinals lead reached as many as eight (45-37) -- which seemed like double that in a game with such torturous offense.
Lampley led Ball State with 16 points (2-for-2 3-pointers) and Laron Frazier scored 10 -- including two game-changing triples.

David Kool joined Drews in double figures, scoring 11 points, though Kool hit just one of his five 3-point attempts.

"We tried to stay a little bit tight on their shooters and try to make sure we could contest 3s and try not to give them any open looks," said Ball State coach Billy Taylor, who inferred the 14 triples WMU hit against NIU changed the Cardinals' defensive strategy.

WMU held Ball State to less than 35 percent shooting, which it's done to all four MAC opponents, but made a few critical errors.

"In a game that you needed to play perfect defensively, we did not play the perfect game defensively," Hawkins said. "We missed a lot of shots and that really ended up being it."